In the 1990s, “Skateboarding is not a crime” was a popular sticker slogan demonstrating opposition to local ordinances that banned skateboarding in public places. In the proceeding decades, skateboarding and other action sports like surfing and snowboarding evolved from counterculture to mainstream...

A lot has been going right at Arby’s in the last year or two, enough to drive the company’s same-store sales up 9.8 percent in the first quarter of this year, the 18th consecutive quarter that number has climbed. But the brand has a secret: It’s not just the menu innovation that’s leading the...

Rick Wetzel wasn’t really thinking about delivery when he and his wife Elise founded Blaze Pizza in 2012. Part of what differentiated the build-your-own pizza concept from competitors like Domino’s and Papa John’s was the fast casual’s emphasis on dining in the restaurant.
Wetzel says he kept the...

There’s one McDonald’s restructuring story that still hasn’t been told.
I know it hasn’t been told, because it happens to be mine.
While it might not seem that a rather silly, personal anecdote that’s more than half-a-century old can help in the complex restructuring of a company that did $35...

Q: What are the best kinds of posts to share on Twitter, Facebook, etc.?
A: There are a lot of ways to generate “likes” and “shares” on social media, but to use it to build a sustaining brand, you should align your social content with your brand strategy.
Videos of cute cats and aphorisms like “...

Once avoided for its fatty (but oh-so-delicious) flavor, bacon is experiencing a renaissance, and Which Wich has joined the movement. Starting Monday, June 8, the Dallas-based sandwich concept will switch from its standard bacon crumbles to Hormel’s Applewood-smoked variety. To promote the switch,...

Less than a week before becoming the co-founder of Pincho Factory, Nedal Ahmad placed a frantic call to his cousin after discovering the mere $6.27 left in his bank account. Despite a load of logistical setbacks, including a complete lack of trained staff, Ahmad insisted that the restaurant open...

Arianne Bennett says her husband, Scott, first tasted a falafel in 1968. He rediscovered the fried chickpea-based product decades later on a trip to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and when the couple returned home, they decided to develop their own falafel shop with a do-it-yourself toppings bar like...

Magic sort of loses its luster with age. Rarely does one find the right occasion to use the term magical as an adult—after a first date, perhaps, or to describe an experience at a concert or a vacation. There is one place, though, where—by design—the magic never seems to die. Walt...

Quick-service operators looking for external financial support often find an attractive option in private equity firms. But finding the right partner takes effort, research, and a little bit of soul searching.

Colleagues and industry contacts are good places to start when considering...

It was another late night last fall at the LivingSocial office in Washington, D.C., and Alan Clifford and Ian Costello were hungry. As vice presidents of customer relationship management and product development, respectively, the two were often burning the midnight oil and coming upon the same...

Having spent three decades helping franchisees evaluate prospective investments, Terry Powell has noticed a monumental shift in the industry. The days of franchisees signing on the dotted line with little more than a review of the royalties, franchise fee, and total investment have largely...

Perhaps best known for cofounding America Online (AOL) and later serving as its CEO, Steve Case has now turned his attention to foodservice. Like many tech innovators, he sees great potential to “disrupt” the system through technology and a tech mindset.

A study sponsored by CKE brand Hardee’s revealed a correlation between a restaurant’s interior design and its customers’ healthy dining habits.While the study, “Music & Light,” was conducted at Cornell University’s Food and Brand lab in Ithaca, New York, in 20

The minimum wage is on the mind of most quick-service operators today, especially as many states and cities pass regulations that bump the minimum wage upward.But when Moo Cluck Moo founder Brian Parker and his team first sat down to discuss employee pay, he says, the minimum wage wasn’t even